Fame and fortune are the lot of today's leading rugby players. Professionalism has delivered lashings of wealth and a level of adulation that only the tools of modern marketing can cultivate. It has also made pressure and performance the players' constant companions. Performance dictates that even a resounding 25-12 victory over South Africa may be criticised if it were not accomplished with sufficient panache. And the pressure is always there - on and off the field. Role models and marketing tools face constant demands. Rarely is the world their own.
Tana Umaga is not, of course, the first to succumb to that pressure. Only last season, Norm Hewitt made a tearful apology after a drinking binge in Queenstown. And Andrew Mehrtens put paid to his choirboy image by inciting a Pretoria crowd with a crude gesture.
A decade ago, such lapses would barely have rated a mention. A quick frown and the act would have been dismissed as boys being boys. Many an indiscretion has ended up under the rugby union's carpet.
That is no longer the case as first Hewitt and now Umaga have discovered. Modern damage control theory demands that unacceptable behaviour is quickly admitted. Attempted concealment carries the seeds for greater damage. More fundamentally, however, it is recognised that professional sportspeople have responsibilities as role models.
Umaga acknowledged as much recently when he noted that "we are ambassadors for the country when we're overseas and we're ambassadors for the kids when we are at home." The All Black winger went on to comment on the value of discipline and to note that if some players had had to clean up their living, that was no bad thing.
Umaga's drunken behaviour in Christchurch means, of course, that those words return to haunt him. They add weight, if any were needed, to the indefensibility of his conduct. His drunken state is blameworthy enough, whether or not he reacted to verbal abuse. It is nonsensical to say that the disclosure of his behaviour somehow invaded his privacy. Umaga was drunk in an extremely public place, the centre of one of the country's biggest cities. Quite correctly, the All Black management is not among those who seek to excuse him. His condition, as team manager Andrew Martin concedes, was unacceptable.
This is not Umaga's first brush this season with the stringent demands of professionalism. He earned plaudits, and emerged as a model father, when he chose not to accompany his Super 12 team-mates to South Africa because his wife was expecting their second child. But there was no such applause when he was suspended for a head-high tackle while playing for the Hurricanes. Such indiscipline - resulting in potential damage to his team - was not the hallmark of a professional approach.
Some players have foundered and others have thrived in rugby's rapid transition to professionalism. Pressure, wealth and an abundance of spare time has proved a volatile mixture for a few of the more immature. Others have been overly impressed by their own celebrity status. It has not helped, either, that beer remains an entrenched part of rugby culture. The sponsor's product is always present for those who wish to indulge. The rugby union, while happy to reap the rewards of a professional era, has, unfortunately, made no serious effort to address such issues.
Equally regrettably, Umaga's punishment will probably not be made public. The rugby union, unlike many sports authorities, maintains an amateurish diffidence to the disclosure of penalties. Publicity would at least confirm that appropriate action had been taken when the game has been shamed.
On this occasion, the only comfort lies in the martinet scrupulousness of Mr Martin. In all likelihood, Umaga has more to fear from his manager's Army-honed tongue than anything South Africa threw at him on Saturday.
<i>Editorial:</i> Umaga deserves a tongue-lashing
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